{{ track.title }}

Recently Broadcast

{{track.Track}} by {{track.Composer}}

Counterstream Radio is your online home for exploring the music of America’s composers. Drawing upon New Music USA’s substantial library of recordings, our programming is remarkable for its depth and eclecticism. The station streams influential music of many pedigrees 24 hours a day. Keep listening and discover the sound of music without limits.

We Opened 2 National Grants in the Last 2 Days

August 20, 2012

One might think that over 2 million dollars in requests from our recently passed CAP Recording deadline would be keeping us good and busy (and it has), but we’ve been getting another 2 of our 8 grant programs up and running these past few days to welcome a new wave of talented artists from across the country. When it comes to supporting artists, we don’t mess around. What programs just opened, you ask?

Our October 1st round of MetLife Creative Connections opened yesterday, and our October 15th round of the Composer Assistance Program opened today. Like all of our programs, the same composer can apply to both of these programs at the same time if he or she is eligible. Let’s break down some details for each:

MetLife Creative Connections is a program that aims to support engagement and residency activities for composers who want to take their audience interaction to the next level. This program supports master classes, pre and post-concert talks, lectures, Q+As, receptions where attendees can talk with the composer and performers, and just about any other type of engagement you can think of where individuals can interact intimately with the composer and his or her work. The awards lie anywhere between $250-$3,500 dollars, depending on how busy the composer is, and this October round supports activity taking place between January and March in 2013 anywhere in the United States. But this next part is important: all of the activities HAVE to be open to the public. The events don’t have to be free (although free is awesome), and they can be ticketed, but the opportunity has to exist in a context where anyone who wants to come CAN. So for example, college master classes where only students and faculty benefit are not supported by this program. You can take a look at our guidelines to get a better idea of what is and isn’t supported by MLCC, and to also get an idea of how much you should request for your upcoming activity.

The Composer Assistance Program is a program that a lot of composers continue to find really, really useful. This program aims to help early and mid-career living composers offset costs associated with live premieres and public readings of new or significantly revised works. Supported expenses include copying costs; score and part extraction and reproduction; travel and lodging to attend the premiere; costs for obtaining copyrighted material; and more. Awarded funds go straight to supporting direct costs and time that composers spend oh-so-very much of when creating new works. If you have an upcoming premiere any time before October of 2013, or if a premiere of your work has taken place since May of 2012, you should check out our guidelines and see if you are eligible to apply for funds or reimbursement – you can request up to $5,000 for your premiere. That money can be pretty helpful to a lot of people. Not to mention, our guidelines list exactly what is eligible, what you can apply for, and important things to keep in mind when completing your application.

As always, you can contact our program team for any questions that may come up.